It is
otherwise with the mound traditions and their relation, if not to fairy
tales in general, to tales about fairies, trolls, elves, &c. These are
very few in number, and generally bear the character of anecdotes. The
fairies, &c., steal a child; they help a wanderer to a drink and then
disappear into a green hill; they help cottagers with their work at night,
but disappear if their presence is noticed; human midwives are asked to
help fairy mothers; fairy maidens marry ordinary men, or girls marry and
live with fairy husbands. All such things may have happened and bear no
such _a priori_ marks of impossibility as speaking animals, flying through
the air, and similar incidents of the folk-tale pure and simple. If, as
archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in Northern Europe
very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground chambers artificially
concealed by green hillocks, it does not seem unlikely that odd survivors
of the race should have lived on after they had been conquered and nearly
exterminated by Aryan invaders, and should occasionally have performed
something like the pranks told of fairies and trolls.
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